Here is my slapd access portion. The members of the admin group aren't
able to write; however, even though I have a rule saying they can. I
have to add a access to * by * to be able to write at all. Any ideas?

...

access to *
by group.exact="cn=admin,dc=dandy,dc=net" write
by group.exact="cn=techs,dc=dandy,dc=net" read
by self write
by users read
by anonymous auth
by * break

# Allow only user to change its password
access to attr=userPassword
by group="cn=techs,ou=groups,dc=dandy,dc=net" write
by self write
by anonymous auth
by * none

This may not answer your question, but one thing you should do is
reverse the order of these rules, otherwise the second will never be
reached. See: